


Death and What Comes Before

by WonderWafles



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Part of the Eris has a Worm theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 19:03:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderWafles/pseuds/WonderWafles
Summary: It is not from Toland that Eris expects any help, but the universe can be surprising.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first venture into Eris/Toland stuff. I'm sort of plugging a couple of unofficial theories here; that Eris has a Worm, and that Toland hangs around the Tower and can make himself ethereally visible whenever he wants. I hope you enjoy!

It wasn’t a surprise, really.

When the snow fell harder than Eris had ever remembered it doing and the pain started in her stomach again, she knew what it was. What it had to be.

Still, when she made her painful way into the deserted Hall of the Vanguard and pushed Ikora’s notes aside to fix her hands like tree trunks on the plain wood of the table and heave great breaths. She squeezed two of her eyes shut, and left the third open to stare at the table.

It was the middle of the night. Ikora and Zavala had gone to bed, and Cayde went to do whatever it was someone who was both an Exo and a Hunter did when he was supposed to be sleeping. The cleaning frames had moved on, and only belatedly did she look around to see if Xur was lurking in the corner (he was not). 

The thing inside her twisted and fought like it was trying to escape, and she had to push her hood back and unwrap her eyes when her head started to pound. She finally closed the third one; black fluid rushed more quickly without the bandage, staining her clothes. She shuddered as she thought she could hear the beginnings of a voice, speaking to her with twisting words that she didn't want to understand.

So no, it wasn’t much of a surprise that somebody else seemed to hear it too.

Her first indication that he was there came subtly. The shadows lengthened without an object to cast them. The torches guttered, a thin chill entered the windless hall.

“You’ve been reading too many horror novels, Toland.”

The air stilled.

“One can never read enough,” a voice said from behind her. It would have sounded like a teacher’s, thin and reedy and lecturing and almost perpetually slightly disappointed, but for a layer of threat. She would have found Toland defending his overdependence on horror tropes funny if she wasn’t so exhausted.

She turned, and he was behind her.

Translucent, apparently not ready to wholly surrender his grip on death, Toland looked much the same as he had left them; surprising, considering his eagerness to shed his mortal form. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She turned back to the desk. She would not be the first to speak, would not give him that pleasure. Instead, she did what she had come here to do, and grabbed a book.

He glided up to her and looked over her shoulder. “Ah, the Metaphysics of the Hive by Allman Heart. A fine book, if you are alright with rampant propaganda and misinformation.”

“I am not here to learn,” she responded. “I am here to fight.”

“Typical Hunter,” he said. He crossed over to the side of the table, close to where Cayde stood. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Flickering lights?” she asked. “An unnatural chill? You are trying to be dramatic.”

Toland narrowed his eyes. “You are not concerned with bigger things?” he asked her. “You know why I have come.”

She did. She wasn’t sure that Toland would show himself to her out of the kindness of his heart, but to solve a mystery?

“You are dead,” she told him.

“As Guardians, we know better than most that death is relative,” he said, waving a hand unconcernedly. “You are not. But you’re dying.”

She’d thought hearing the word would be impactful. But instead, it felt almost relieving. What was happening to her had a name. It was mortal – eminently so. After she’d given up her Ghost, she’d had time to get used to mortality. It was the way the Hive played with death that scared her, now.

But she was a survivor. She would fight. She would endure. She had sworn that to herself long ago, and she wasn’t about to give it up now.

“Do you know how to fix it?” she asked him.

Toland hesitated. She supposed he must have known the question was coming, but he hadn’t prepared himself to say ‘I don’t know’.

“Perhaps,” he said instead. “Perhaps not. I am not sure if any of the Hive have attempted to have their Worms removed. I have the impression it would be a costly procedure for beings so twinned to the Dark. It may be different for you.”

“You left us.”

Toland reacted like he’d been slapped, but recovered quickly. “You were fools to think I owed any loyalty to you. My interests have always been my own. I apologize if I did not make that clear enough, but you had all heard the stories. Eriana knew what she was getting in to when she solicited my help.”

Eris felt almost startled she brought it up. She wasn’t thinking about it when she’d considered the possibility of his appearance, and certainly not when she’d heard the shadow of his whisper for the first time, one voice of many crying for her attention. _Dearest Eris, it’s not all bad…_ But as a dying woman she thought she’d rather earned it. 

“And besides,” Toland continued. “Would it have made any difference if I had committed myself to Crota’s demise? We were unprepared. Even I admit that. Crota was simply stronger than us, and in those spaces that is all that matters.” 

She wanted to say that Oryx’s death proved otherwise, that the Guardians who’d set free the Light and refused Oryx’s powers, their right as his killer, had brought the Light into ‘those spaces’. But that would be a gamble. She did not know that Toland had been watching, although she’d suspected, and she didn’t know if he’d care. It was his ego she wanted to hit, but that wouldn’t do her any good.

“Why did you swallow the Worm, Eris?” he asked. She thought he had tried to sound objective, but the way his voice caught on ‘Why’ and the way he refused to look at her at all made the effect moot.

“It was the only way to escape the Pit that you left me in.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Here I am.”

Toland paced, as he always did when his mind was working. “Proof of one hypothesis does not disprove another,” he said. “The beast must have told you what you were getting into.”

“It said that I must follow my nature.”

As soon as she said it, the Worm responded. It began its writhing again, sent its honeyed voice echoing through every corner of her being.

_Why do you deny the Oath, o bearer mine?_

_You see him! Toland! He knows the true shape! He has denied his weakness, his dependence, and look at him now! He has ascended! While you cling to life, weak and dying, he will never die again!_

_I can bring you strength. The krill are weak; you have proven that. It is with your kind that the final shape rests. I can help you prove it._

_But you must help me first._

“It’s lying,” he said. “Or at least, it is not telling the truth. It is killing that feeds it. Killing, and strength, although to the Worms the two are synonymous.” There was something like admiration in his voice.

“I know.”

This brought him to a pause. “You do?” he asked.

Eris grinned a crooked grin. “You are not the one with a specimen in your gut,” she said drily.

“Unfortunately,” he murmured.

She supposed that she should have found that offensive, considering her current state, but most of her just found it funny. If anyone asked her who Toland was, she would point to when he was upset and jealous a ghastly supernatural worm wasn’t chewing at his insides.  
She didn’t realize she was laughing until he scowled at her. “Stop that,” he said. “You’re exacerbating the symptoms.”

It was true. The pain sounded acutely every time she drew in a deep gasping breath and rattled her body with laughter. She tried to stop, but instead it just became silent.

Finally, the pain became too much to bear, and she doubled over, grasping feebly at the table. It didn’t help that the Worm took this opportunity to redouble its efforts, clawing at her stomach with fervor. It was hungry, and she knew that from here it would only get worse. 

When Toland grabbed her shoulders, it wasn’t gentle or comforting, but it was steadying. He hauled her to her feet. “You’re crazy,” he snarled.

Finally, Eris set her alien eyes on his. He wavered for a moment, but stared fully into them. She thought she could see fear in his; she wasn’t sure what he saw in hers.

He released her. After a few heartbeats, he lowered his gaze. The Hall of the Vanguard was silent once again for a moment.

His hand hovered over her stomach. He looked at her, asking for permission. She gave it with a nod.

He touched her armor, but somehow she thought he didn’t need anything more. The Worm would have been as plain as day to him. He lowered his ear, as though she were pregnant and he were trying to feel a kick.

“You fed it your Ghost,” he exhaled. “Oh, Eris.”

That was the most emotion she could remember him showing to her. It was unsettling. “It needed a signifier of our oath.” She let out a shaky breath. Of all of her trials in the Pit, this was the worst. “She agreed that it was necessary. There was enough Light in her to feed it for a year, she said. Maybe more. But then it would hunger again.” 

A hesitation, as she thought of the moment she offered her first companion to the thing. The Worm snapped her up in an instant, like a snake in front of a mouse. “It gave me the strength to fight the strongest Hive on equal footing. When I lashed out, the universe flinched. It was the only reason I made it out.”

Toland didn’t seem to be listening, so engrossed he was in her stomach, but he responded easily. “I liked your Ghost,” he said thinly. “She was intelligent. Clever. Kind.”

“She was,” Eris agreed softly.

Toland stood up. “I will ask around,” he said. “Keep my ear to the ground, as Cayde might say. Perhaps the Techuens will know something, or even the Nine-”

“You don’t have to do this,” Eris said. “I have accepted my fate. Hopefully I will have time to complete my duty here, but after that? I am not afraid to die.”

Eris was grateful Toland didn’t ask after her duty. Instead, he leant forward and clasped her shoulders. Eris bent and placed her forehead against his chest. It was an odd embrace, and Eris was not sure where either of them had learned it, but it felt right.

To refuse Toland’s help was likely foolish. But there was still anger in her, anger at him and anger at herself. Spurning Toland would satisfy both.

“I will ask,” he said firmly. “I do not promise anything. But I – I think I would not like to be the last of Eriana’s fireteam.”

“You wouldn’t,” she whispered. “Trust me.”

When she looked up, he was gone.


End file.
